Thousands of solar manufacturing jobs are at risk

Two bankrupt foreign companies are asking the federal government to impose a price floor that would more than double the current market price of solar panels–which would crush demand for solar power and result in thousands of manufacturing jobs lost.

The solar industry employs more than Facebook, Apple, and Google combined.

17X

GROWTH

Solar employment expanded 17 times faster than the total U.S. economy.

50+

U.S. FACTORIES

More than 2 million tons of American steel used annually to manufacture solar equipment.

ABOUT US

JOBS • MANUFACTURING • ENERGY

U.S. Made Solar is a coalition of domestic solar manufacturers who support the record-breaking growth in the U.S. solar market at every stage of the process. Our membership includes U.S. Manufacturing companies from across the country whose factories produce steel racking and other solar equipment using American steel.

However, the promise of the solar industry is at risk with two bankrupt foreign companies making misleading and false claims about the solar industry.

These foreign companies, which are controlled by foreign wealth funds, have brought a trade petition to the International Trade Commission to impose a price floor as a form of so-called relief. This threatens the entire solar industry in the United States and, by significantly increasing the costs of operation, could result in the losses of tens of thousands of American jobs across the supply chain.

OPERATING SOLAR FACTORIES IN THE U.S.

The Truth About Suniva and SolarWorld

SolarWorld and Suniva are bankrupt and foreign-owned companies that are now asking the International Trade Commission (ITC) to impose tariffs on solar panels, a move that is opposed by a bipartisan group of congressmen and senators and the solar energy industry’s trade association, which estimates the tariffs could result in the loss of up to 88,000 jobs, or one-third of the U.S. solar workforce.

Suniva, which has been majority owned by the Chinese conglomerate Shunfeng International Clean Energy since 2015, filed for bankruptcy in April – two weeks after it laid off 131 employees without notice and closed its plant in Michigan.

An E&E News study of Suniva’s bankruptcy filings has revealed that the company is “overwhelmingly in debt to foreign rather than domestic suppliers”.

Moreover, SQN Capital Management, an asset manager based in offshore tax haven Guernsey, claims that Suniva owes more than $51 million for the purchase of factory equipment, and is bankrolling Suniva’s complaint before the ITC.

SQN previously offered to make the entire complaint go away, for a hefty price. In May, according to a document submitted to ITC, it wrote to the China Chamber of Commerce for Import & Export of Machinery & Electronic Products and said that if it would be able to recover the cost by selling Suniva’s assets, it “would have no interest in providing additional funding” and “the assets of Suniva would be liquidated and the company would cease to exist any longer.”

Suniva’s co-plaintiff is a subsidiary of Germany’s SolarWorld AG, which filed for insolvency in May. SolarWorldthen informed Oregon employment officials that its U.S. operation would be laying off hundreds of employees at its Hillsboro plant and the “employment action is expected to be permanent.”

As of July, SolarWorld Americas eliminated 360 jobs and reduced its headcount from about 800 to 300 through attrition.

The management board of SolarWorld has resigned– with the exception of its founder and chairman, Dr. Ing Eh Frank Ashbeck, who resigned in August.

Asbeck has since announced that the company will get out of insolvency – by selling 49% its assets to a Qatari-German investment fund he set up with Qatar Solar Technologies, a SolarWorld shareholder.

The Qatar Foundation, funded by the government of Qatar, first bailed out Solar World in 2013 and has owned a financial stake in the company ever since.

In short: Suniva and SolarWorld’s foreign financial interests stand in stark contrast to those of the thriving domestic solar manufacturing industry, and any decision in this case to support their false claims would put the interest of foreign hedge funds with poor business records ahead of what’s been a successful domestic industry.

Jeffrey Ball, scholar-in-residence at Stanford University’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance: Solar power is undergoing a stunning revolution, plummeting in price and surging in popularity.…

Government policy shouldn’t pick which companies win and which companies lose. Instead, good policy fosters competition, which leads to better products and greater prosperity. When the politicians get…